In which we explore the options for getting round Bristol (*), and the consequences of those decisions.
(*) Excluding Fishponds.

Sunday, 23 April 2017

Metrobus Enhanced Centre: west to east

Apparently the Metrobus project will bring wonderful cycling facilities to the city.

We await this with curiosity.

We do know that

right now there is nothing

there is nothing on the travelwest web site about how to get across alive on a bicycle

the travelwest web site can't even get their "out of baldwin street for cars" map right.

Overall not a good sign.

Historically, the crossing which is blocked was a walk/cycle crossing where you could cycle randomly around until you made it over. This never actually glued up very well with baldwin street, on account of the railings and the oncoming traffic; you'd have to head over to the bit of the centre which was bus lane only, cycle over the ped crossings there, or go down the bus & bike bit of road the bus drivers felt were theirs. Or you stay on the ped/cycle inner bit, zig zag through people and children, creating the impression that cyclists were tax dodging criminals who cycled where they shouldn't. Yes, the evening post did an article on that topic a very long time ago.

So, we sent our expendable tax dodger to go west-east across the centre to see how things are today

Pretty awful at the start, mediocre in the middle, and just as bad as before at the end.

Awful at the start: well, what do you do? No signs, just a closed off crossing. Our tax dodger eventually went for the coned off lane in the middle and made their way to the new bit of the centre.

Mediocre at the middle. The one thing the Baldwin Street path gets right is: clearly delineated as a bike path. Tax dodgers stay on it, people don't walk down the middle (Except on friday nights, obviously), and people on the pavement don't have to worry about cyclists weaving through them because there's a f-obvious bike lane to use instead.

The new design has some faint tiles on the ground which may mean its a bike lane. Hard to tell. They don't currently join up with anything.

There's some new lights, possibly split into bike & ped, but with no cues, everyone just spread out. Watch out for the person nearly being hit by the turning bus: bit of a design flaw there, even if that's where the cyclists are meant to be.

Finally, at the end, just as bad as before. It does look like there might be some link off to the left, but again, it's been made out of artisanal tiles rather than useful roadbuilding materials, so who knows. You can avoid worrying about this by getting onto the bus zone, coming off it to get towards the Arnolfini.

Once you've actually crossed the centre, you can get down to the prince st bridge (walking), then on to bedminster. Why? Motaman is having a closing down sale! Bedminster's main shopping destination is being shut down as the building is being turned into flats! Gentrification is coming to Bemmy and it's not good.

3 comments:

You missed (1) that the continuation of the "differently paved" cycle lane up to Colston Street is there, but they STILL haven't put a dropped kerb in place to enable you to legally get on to it; and (2) on all of their "look how wonderful it will be" artwork, that big f-ing road (the Baldwin Street extension) was actually paved the same as the rest of the Centre and looked far more like a shared-space area like Exhibition Road in London. How is a new two-lane blacktop supposed to make the Centre a better environment for pedestrians and cyclists? Oh, wait, what *was* I thinking...